The Best Retail Business Idea that Will Make your Business Better

Wifi is the Best Retail Business Idea that Will Make your Business Better

Public wifi for modern retailers became just as important as having running water and heat for many businesses. With the number of smart phone owners skyrocketing the use of electronic commerce has expanded and is now widely accepted.
Smart phone use while shopping has become a way of life for almost all consumers. In fact over fifty percent of the population in the United Kingdom owns a smart phone which is up twenty percent from 2010.

E-Consultancy recently published a study wherein twenty five percent of consumers had made purchases via their smart phone. This is becoming a much bigger part of life even as consumers are shipping at a physical retail store. Many smart phone apps have encouraged this growth and now nearly sixty eight percent of smart phone users actually prefer to use a mobile web site.
Studies indicate now that public wifi has become one of the most important components for consumers between the ages of eighteen and thirty four. In fact, many consumers base their decision on which cafe to use based on the available wifi. Studies have also shown that thirty eight percent of consumers are pushed to make their purchasing decisions on the spot if they receive promotions or offers from their smart phone. This is all a major component to why e-commerce has expanded between the home laptop and now twenty five percent of purchases being made are done via smart phones.

Using Location and Proper Timing

In-store wifi access represents a manner in which retailers can reach out to their consumers and get their attention before the consumers leave for another online site while on the shop floor. To date, over twenty percent of retailers have issues with cell reception and public wifi can cover this gap by acting as a reliable method for consumers to still have access to the internet. Many consumers will make purchases so long as the promotional messages sent to their phones are done so in a timely fashion. By sending messages which are location-specific in a timely fashion retailers can increase the chances of consumers buying right then and there. Research indicates that smart phone use is now an increasing form of revenue for retailers who embrace it. Of course, timing ad location are all relevant components to catching the attention of the buyer.

Who Uses Wifi?

Nearly thirty two percent of consumers in the United Kingdom use public wifi in a retail store for price comparison. Nearly forty one percent of consumers will use their mobile phone in stores half of the time they are shopping. Laptop use for online shopping is slowly declining as smart phones take over. So far laptops only account for four percent of online purchases made, while tablets account for twenty percent, and smart phones account for seventy six percent.

The biggest group to use wifi for retail are between the ages of eighteen and thirty four. Once consumers reach the age of forty six their wifi use drops to less than twenty eight percent—compared to the forty four percent for the younger age group. Once consumers reach this stage males are thirty percent more likely to rely upon in-store wifi even though women own fifty one percent of smart phones at this age.

Thanks to this increase in retail offers via smart phones, the use of wifi has increased in 2012 dramatically totalling an estimated sixteen thousand locations using public wifi which is one third more than the previous year. Department stores, grocery stores, fashion stores, and electronic stores have all increased their use of public wifi. It has grown across the board for additional sectors such as transportation hubs, fast food locations, as well as traditional cafes.